THE BIRTH OF TECHNOLOGY IN FOOTBALL GOALING AND VAR

By Yasin Sentiba a.k.a Yacn Wv for Sportsdesk

No one saw Goal Line and VAR technology coming to the beautiful game of football, but it was a call away. After the Frank Lampard goal didn’t stand in the 2010 World Cup fixture of Germany vs England were England eventually lost 4 – 1 had it been counted it would have been level 2 – 2 and who knows what would happen. Such goals especially the back in bar( crossbar goal ) as commonly kwown had a lot of questions on them especially not being awarded yet they had crossed the line an example was Pedro Mendez goal against Manchester United in 2005 in the premier league and the referees failure to award such goal gave birth to Goal line technology FIFA organized football events and across the Europeans Top leagues.

In 2012 FIFA World Cup goal line technology was introduced and top leagues in Europe embraced it however many football lovers always complained how it kills the rivalry of the game urging that its nature and it should be left out however a lot of questions were left un answered since Goal line technology only catered for the Ball crossing the Goal Line and didn’t look at the entire build up of the game. Due to the many unanswered questions in the Goal Line technology, this asked for a more advanced system which was later found and called VIDEO ASSISTANT REFEREE (VAR).

VAR is described as a match official who reviews decisions made by the centre referee with use of video footage and a headset communication. This was design look at mainly four aspects of football i.e

1. Goal/ No Goal , if an attacking team commits an offense ball in play, ball entering goal, offside, handball, offenses and encroachment during penalty kicks.the best example here is Thieny Henry’s handball goal against Ireland at the state de France in the second leg of the World Cup playoffs match in 2009, Ireland were cruelly denied when France qualified with a goal which should have been disallowed. Thierry Henry cleared handed the ball before setting up William Gallas to equalize on the night and go 2 – 1 head on aggregate.

2. Penalty/ No Penalty, Robert Pires winning a foul in the crystal palace box in the 2004 where palace were leading One Nil against Arsenal, equalizing it from a penalty spot the game ending 1 – 1 who know if hadn’t been for the Pires fouling of the referee Palace would have made Arsenal not have gone the entire season unbeaten.

3. Mistaken identity, As many football players have been booked and eventually sent off due to mistaken identity for example Cris Foy the centre referee booked Fabio da Silva of instead of his twin bother Rafael da Silva in the fixture of Manchester United vs Barnsley in the carling cup 2009-2010 season Arsenal’s Kieran Gibbs mistakenly being sent off against Chelsea in the 2014 season insteady of Oxlade Chambalian.

4. Direct red card. This reminds us Abdul Kader Keita – Kaka in the Brazil vs Ivory Coast incident at the World Cup 2010 were Kaka was given a red card that should have not should and many football lovers described the incident as a totally unjustified sending off.

VAR initiative trying to bring out the equal game slogan of FIFA. VAR has caused so many contravecies in football on who should make the calls, when should VAR be reveiwed and when should the center referee go and check on the side screens. This has rose many eye brows of football lovers globally saying how it it killing beautiful games joy especially when awrongly scored goal is cancelled but all fans forget is that when one side walks away with unsporting behavior it’s killing the game and when awrongfull scored goal is cancelled, the other teams supporters and fan jubilate, all in all jubilation and joy still remains.

Many football fans and critics are saying how VAR is killing the intensity of the game saying how it’s time wasting but what is wrong with stopping play to correct the wrong. Like Jose Felix Mourinho put it only thrives will complain when cameras are installed.